Essendon, Hertfordshire

Essendon

St Mary's parish church
Essendon
 Essendon shown within Hertfordshire
Population 580 (2011 Census)[1]
OS grid referenceTL275087
Civil parishEssendon
DistrictWelwyn Hatfield
Shire countyHertfordshire
RegionEast
CountryEngland
Sovereign stateUnited Kingdom
Post town Hatfield
Postcode district AL9
Dialling code 01707
Police Hertfordshire
Fire Hertfordshire
Ambulance East of England
EU Parliament East of England
UK ParliamentWelwyn Hatfield
List of places
UK
England
Hertfordshire

Coordinates: 51°45′42″N 0°09′11″W / 51.7617°N 0.1531°W / 51.7617; -0.1531

Essendon is a village and civil parish in Hertfordshire 6 miles (10 km), south-west of Hertford.

The village is on the B158 road 330 feet (100 m) above sea level and has a view of the Lea Valley to the north. Although on an ancient site, St Mary's parish church dates mainly from the 17th and 18th centuries and was restored in 1883. The west tower dates from the 15th century and has eight bells, the oldest cast in 1681.[2] The church contains an unusual Wedgwood ceramic font dated 1780 and several brasses and monuments.[3] In 1916 the east end of the church was damaged by a bomb dropped by the German Navy Zeppelin L-16; two sisters were killed.[4] There is a village pub named The Rose and Crown.

Historic houses in the parish include Camfield Place which was the home of the novelist Barbara Cartland and visited by Beatrix Potter. Nearby is Holwell Court, a Grade II listed building, built in about 1900 for Sir Ernest George; it is now converted to private apartments.

Essendon Place was the seat of the Barons Dimsdale of Russia; Thomas Dimsdale was an expert on the treatment of smallpox by inoculation and in 1768 he was invited to Russia to inoculate Catherine the Great. For his services there he was made a baron of the Russian Empire.[5]

Bedwell Park is another manor house near to the village and is also the site of Essendon Country Club golf club.[6] Bedwell End was the home of Deneys Reitz, High Commissioner for the Union of South Africa, until his death on 19 October 1944.[7] At the outbreak of the Second Anglo-Boer War he joined the Boer forces at the age of seventeen and accompanied General JC Smuts on his famous raid in the Cape Colony, of which Reitz wrote in his autobiography, Commando.[8] In World War I, as a lieutenant-colonel, he commanded the 1st Royal Scots Fusiliers on the Western Front in France.[9]

In the early hours of the 2nd-3 September 1916 during World War I, Essenden was bombed by a Schutte-Lanz airship returning from a bombing raid on London. Two people were killed and a plaque commemorating the event is on the wall of the church.[10]

References

  1. ↑ "Civil Parish population 2011". Neighbourhood Statistics. Office for National Statistics. Retrieved 28 October 2016.
  2. ↑ http://dove.cccbr.org.uk/detail.php?DoveID=ESSENDON
  3. ↑ http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=43641
  4. ↑ http://www.hartfordhundred.org.uk/essendon.php
  5. ↑ http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=43641
  6. ↑ Mitchinson, By Terry. "New facilities at Essendon Country Club golf course". Welwyn Hatfield Times. Retrieved 2016-04-26.
  7. ↑ The London Gazette: no. 37150. p. 3361. 26 June 1945. Retrieved 2009-06-03.
  8. ↑ "Reitz, Deneys". Dictionary of South African Biography. I. Human Sciences Research Council. 1981. p. 670. ISBN 0-409-09183-9.
  9. ↑ The London Gazette: (Supplement) no. 31439. p. 8589. 8 July 1919. Retrieved 4 June 2009.
  10. ↑ "Zeppelin Raids - Herts at War". www.hertsatwar.co.uk. Retrieved 2016-09-04.
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